Why The ‘Obvious’ Isn’t Always The Answer – And How You Can Take Advantage of it…

I’ve always been slightly dubious of the phrase ‘It’s obvious’ … because the ‘obvious’ is usually the result of some poorly informed assumption, often arrived at by not looking at something closely enough…

Take for instance online gaming … not my field of expertise, and probably not yours either … but if I asked you to think of a ‘gamer’, you probably would have in mind a male, probably late teens to mid twenties with a poor attempt at facial hair and minimal social skills…

Yet, if I was to tell you that a great many more online games were in fact played by ladies than gents you might understandably raise an eyebrow … until I pointed out they’re not all playing ‘World of Warhammer’ (though a great many do) or even shouting obscenities into a headset whilst gunning down some virtual zombies or terrorists … but are in fact racking up a great many hours playing games like Farmville or Candy Crush.

I know this isn’t what would ‘obviously’ spring to mind as online gaming … but what makes it interesting for us, is that the amount of advertising the user is exposed to while they play makes this format every bit as profitable for the game producers as it is would be if they charged you the best part of £50 for it on Amazon.

This is just another example of how things have moved on so that you can profit from what you do online without having to sell anything. Which is, you’ll be pleased to hear, good news for those of us who think they are no good at, or not comfortable with, ‘selling.’

I’m not suggesting we should all go out and invent the next ‘Flappy Birds’ because, quite frankly – 99% of us would not know where to start … but if we look at the overall concept – we can certainly adapt it to take advantage of it.

Facebook, of course do it, and the best bloggers have been doing it for years … but the concept of creating an online environment where a visitor is informed or entertained over a number of pages or length of time whilst exposed to carefully targeted but not intrusive advertising is really catching on in a big way…

As I pointed out before – this is a great opportunity for those who may feel they might have previously ‘underperformed’ due to not being ‘salesy’ enough … to create or present niche content to attract and amuse people, pop some adverts around it for people to click on if they choose, and leave the selling to somebody else.

Of course, this plan does require a fair amount of traffic … but on the other hand, you might be pleasantly surprised by the amount of people who would be willing to visit if they know you’re not trying to directly sell them anything…

In conclusion then, let me underline the fact that there are so many more ways of making a profit from your online efforts rather than the ‘obvious’ internet marketing model – there are online services you can provide to small businesses (a very lucrative area currently you might do well to get onboard with) as well as the kind of ideas we’ve explored today, because it’s not just all about doing it the same old ‘obvious’ way…